For the first 4 Days we installed our Analog Visuals Labor at the Bâtiment d’art contemporain, where we exposed the Synkie and continued to work on it. For the Vernissage we performed live with Nikki Neeke.

Videomix & 3D Joystik

Since my first guide “How to make illuminated buttons” I’ve built quite some controllers with illuminated buttons and I found some improvements I want to share today. The original technique had some downfalls. First of all, the latex from the gloves wears quite quickly, it’s not really reliable for everyday use. It also only holds to the casing and it can come loose if someone presses the buttons too strong. Another problem when building it is to find the correct placing of the holes and the keeping the rubber buttons at the correct distance.
My actual technique addresses these two concerns by:

Using white balloons instead of latex gloves. They are much more durable, but you’ll need brighter leds as they are more opaque.

Putting the balloons into a sandwich between a piece of wood and the casing

As outlined in the article Programming ATMEL microprocessors on a Mac, installing the AVR toolchain on the Mac can be a long and tedious procedure. Downloading, compiling and installing all the stuff can take up to 6 hours!

For a workshop I gave recently we tried to simply copy over all the binaries in /usr/local/avr/ and it worked.
Now I wrapped the whole thing into a nice installer package, see below.

Probably the smallest USB-DMX Interface in the worldThe uDMX is built around an inexpensive Atmel Atmega8 Microprocessor, using only very few external parts, thanks to the excellent firmware-only USB driver from obdev.at.We managed to cram it all into a Neutrik XLR Connector. [ >>> ]

Using the uDMX commandline interface and PHP it is fairly easy to build a system to control your lights from a ordinary web browser. In this post I show you how to put a slider on a web page that controls the first channel of your DMX light dimmer. This is not a very useful application, but throw in some more Ajax and a database of your choice, et voilà: A web based lighting desk…

Just in time for our appearance at the “Homemade Festival” in Glarus, I finished the first version of my new “virtual video mixing console”. Version 1.0 had just some buttons, 8 rotary encoders and 8 faders. It was getting of age and I didn’t like to perform with it anymore. So, months of work and about 2000 solder points later, a dream comes true…
USB Interface, 35 Potentiometers with 35 Ledrings, 8 Faders, 6 Microprocessors, expandable…
Read on for the photos:[ >>> ]

This video illustrates the making of a Videobass string. In order to wind the strings, I built a simple machine from parts lying around - some wood and gear wheels from a used laser toner cartridge - driven by an old sewing machine.

Videobass strings are made of a 1.5mm nylon core, wound with 0.1mm resistance (constantan) wire.
I got the nylon from a local fishing shop and the wire from Distrelec (Article No 513861).

First I roughen the nylon a bit with sanding paper (240), so that the constantan wire doesn’t slip.
I then wind the wire very tightly around the nylon. There has to be not the slightest gap, nor any crossings! It’s much easier to get it tight when you hold the wire quite far away. With a little practice it takes about five minutes to wind the string.
Finally the string is polished with very fine sanding paper (600), to even it out. This makes it more comfortable to touch and improves electrical contact with the fingerboard.
The ends are sealed by melting the nylon with a lighter.

A typical string of 60cm has a resistance of about 2kOhm - compared to the resistance of the wire at 62Ohms per meter that’s about 32m of wire per string !

The uDMX is built around an inexpensive Atmel Atmega8 Microprocessor, using only very few external parts, thanks to the excellent firmware-only USB driver from obdev.at.
We managed to cram it all into a Neutrik XLR Connector.

Have you ever touched those gummy buttons on an old Sony Betacam recorder? Ever admired this warm glow beneath the play-button? Ever wanted to add some of these to your own do-it-yourself projects, only to find you can’t buy them nowhere?

The VideoBass is an unique hardware/software-combination for controlling live-visuals. Shaped like a electric bass-guitar, it relies on the guitar-paradigm where, basically speaking, the left hand chooses between a wide variety of possible notes, and the right hand triggers them.

Invention et fabrication de la première videobasse - un instrument pour jouer des images…
“The VideoBass is an unique hardware/software-combination for controlling live-visuals. Shaped like a electric bass-guitar, it relies on the guitar-paradigm where, basically speaking, the left hand chooses between a wide variety of possible notes, and the right hand triggers them.”